Selfish memes of power

alt.memetics archives
Number of articles: 5
(this is only a small part of a long-lasting thread running on alt.memetics,
alt.society neutopia, and alt.cyberspace.)

From: hingh@xs4all.nl (Ph. I)
Newsgroups: alt.society.neutopia,alt.memetics
Subject: selfish memes of power
Date: 28 Jan 1995 10:29:47 GMT
_
see how our memetic theories unambiguously demonstrate that the
p o w e r of man evolutionarily optimizes its p r o p a g a t i o n
through time rather than whatever man would like to use his
worldly power for.
a specific type of power, or s t r a t e g y, can offer its host
many capacities for manipulating other people, but if it fails to
r e p l i c a t e its own structure into new hosts, it will loose
the 'struggle' with strategies that do better.
woe betide the man who tries to use but not propagate his power
memes, since (by trial and error) these have learnt how to fix
such m u t a n t s.
no, this is by no means a man we are likely to see in a
powerful position.
in the powerful positions are the powerless, the r o b o t s, who
want the power they dream of so badly, that they are eager to
believe they a r e in control.
setting any goal they want, and knowing that they will r e a c h
any goal they set, they forget that they cannot w a n t anything
but what their power memes demand.
m a r c
http://xs4all.nl/~hingh/

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbayly@homebase.tiac.net (David Bayly)
In article <3gd6ar$qdk@news.xs4all.nl>, hingh@xs4all.nl (Ph. I) wrote:
> _
>
> see how our memetic theories unambiguously demonstrate that the
> p o w e r of man evolutionarily optimizes its p r o p a g a t i o n
> through time rather than whatever man would like to use his
> worldly power for.
> [......]
> setting any goal they want, and knowing that they will r e a c h
> any goal they set, they forget that they cannot w a n t anything
> but what their power memes demand.
>
That's a parasitic strategy, were it viable there's no reason why
symbiotic memes couldn't evolve too. Life is not quite that bleak.
(A plague on the news programs that insist on more answer than quote)
--
- David Bayly mailto://dbayly@homebase.tiac.net
Opinions herein are mine, all mine. <<Evil laugh>>

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbennett@crl.com (Andrea Chen)
hingh@xs4all.nl (Karl Marx) writes:
>MEMES OFTEN live in symbiosis with the g e n e t i c needs of their hosts.
>Memes can be symbiotic with other m e m e s as well. In that case we call
>them co-memes, or part of the same meme complex.
>POWER MEMES are in a luxury position: they are v e r y interesting co-meme
>candidates for virtually ALL memes. So power memes are in a position to
>'choose' the co-memes that suit t h e i r replication best.
>This choice <no teleology intended> does not lead to a partnership based
>on equality: the power meme will get full support from its chosen co-meme,
>and the latter will get a minimum of support in return.
>IF YOU accommodate a nice ideology that you would like the world to be
>infected with, DO NOT look after power that allows you to spread your
>message. The price your memes will have to pay to the co-memes that give
>you this power will be too high.
>You would probably end up with a parody of the ideology you started with,
>spending most of your time and energy replicating the memes of power.
>(possibly without even being aware of it...)
>This is exactly what happened to all the great ideologies from the past...
This is a fascinating concept and does have a great deal of historical
confirmation. The ideas which thrive are often rendered into triviality
while the mechanism which propagates them becomes the purpose.
Unfortunatly this leaves us with a serious problem, we push memes
because they matter, to forsake "propagation memes" is to abandon
our ideas, to make them no more than a thought on a rainy night,
there for a moment and then gone.
I think a partial solution does pragamtically exist. Though science
and other fields are imperfect (power memes do distort things), they
seem to also provide corrective mechanisms that at least partially
overcome the political.
One of the goals of neu neu topian thought (pursued in alt.cyberspace)
is to create a more "conscious net" in which "virtual neurons" (humans,
AIs (referred to as nodes in the work of McGowan) watch patterns of
threads and attempt actions which provide some correction. This is
a "meta level" of awareness.
I think it time that we develop some new terminology for our "glass beads"
"Karl Marx" has proposed a preliminary division between straightforward
idea and propagater. I would suggest a 3 part division based on Monads
and Jacobs work in microbiology. We shall (borrowing their terminology
slavishly) call this an "operon". The "structural bead" is the pure idea.
The "operater bead" that which spreads it. The third is the "regulator
meme" (which in DNA resides separately from these two) whose general
logic is to suppress (when necessary the operater).
This incidently is the simplest form of known cybernetic feedback
system and more complex logics do exist.
As a note, I use the term "glassbead" (or bad) interchangeably with
"meme", however I think we should move towards the former in our
Internet development. Dawkins logics are an inspiration and bear
similarities to what we are trying to do, but they are an independant
development. Sharing terms may muddle his work and our own.
"Buttons" are a special form of bead designed to instigate certain
activities in the "neurons". At this time I would say that they
include (at least in some aspects) features of both "operaters"
and "regulaters". The "operater" is a fairly easily observed
event. "Regulators" are just being explored.
- Doctress Andrea -

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbennett@crl.com (Andrea Chen)
karl@skat.usc.edu (Karl Geiger) writes:
>"Andrea", sweetheart, it's just not funny. You'll never program
>cybermemespace if you put the audience to sleep. You gotta try
>harder, be more loopy; try some antiyonicentric consonanterpolation;
>disemvowel a few o' them dollar-ninety-five words you're using.
"Karl", you still don't get it. This is many waved meme attack. We
have already silenced many of your more vocal nodes. This "dry"
stuff is a further assault on your "umbrella nodes". Wear you
down like water. Get you looking in one direction and then the
unexpected attack occurs. Do you think Mother Foundress was
a coincidence? We gave you a choice, convert or be banished. We
are patient, we practice the tactics of Sun Tzu, but soon there
will be no more monster truck neutopians in alt.society.neutopia
We are playing within your skull. Pretty soon the "silly memes"
which drive you will cause you to unsubscribe from this group.
It will be ours, to do with as we please.
- Doctress Andrea -